This is the common cry on forums and mother/child groups up and down the land. Not many of us have enough experience other than our own children in knowing if what we as seeing is typical or not.
Below are three real life examples from parents…..
My son is 20 months old and he does not talk alot, we read to him and as he points to things we talk about what they are. The Dr. says all of his other communication skills are great but I am starting to get concerned that he does not say a lot of words, at time he will repeat what you say but not on a consistent basis. He has said mamma and dadda for a long time. Does anyone have some advice or some activities my husband and I can use to help this process?
It’s become obvious that my son is having trouble with speech, specifically stuttering and having a hard time getting the words to come out. It’s been going on for about 9-12 months and I thought it would get better or he would grow out of it, but it’s just getting worse. So much so, that last night he was crying because he couldn’t get the words.
I thought my daughter had a problem with her speech b/c at 1, she wasn’t talking, everyone including Drs. told me I was over worried, (she will talk) they told me ,( give her time !), at 2 she wasn’t talking, nothing, zip! Same scenario, im a worried Mom, she’ll talk when she wants too. At 3 still not talking, Drs. after Drs., even switched Drs., im still a worried Mom, after all Albert Einstein didn’t talk until he was much older than that! So at 4 my daughter started talking, but we had a prob., it sounded like Chinese, very weird, so I took her to the DR and demanded that they evaluate her! So they did and she failed everything! So she started speech therapy and she was talking in 1 yr., yes, at 5 yrs old she could finally talk. They asked me why I waited so long to have her tested, I was like, don’t even go there! She’s 11 and still in speech. I say if you think there’s a problem, make them listen to you! Do something about it. I wish I hadn’t listened to family, friends and Drs., they all were wrong! I knew something was wrong and I wish she would have gotten the help she needed sooner!
Raising Playful Tots is an Internet radio or Podcast available 24hrs a day . Host: Melitsa Avila of Play Activities. Download each episode yourself visit each show notes to do this or have iTunes do this automatically for you.
Week 13th June 2010: Talking Tots with Lisa Houghton. Lisa share answers to questions like those above in this weeks show. A must listen if you have a little one.
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There is something special about the feel of paint between your fingers.
Finger paint and stamping must be the most time consuming of paint types to set up and clean up but…..but gives the most satisfaction!
This was the 10 to 15 minutes into the painting session. I think we only stopped because we’d run out of surfaces to hand the paper on to dry out of reach of the LO.
The question : Tell me what’s going on there? Gave a very long answer that made me smile.
It’s all too easy to jump in the car to grab something from the supermarket. Or you’re late for an appointment so you bundle the kids into the car and make a dash for it. Only to find that somehow you meet a delay or road works.
Worse is when you are on a long commute home from a trip out and you get caught up in traffic. I nervously start working out the nearest toilet stops. Although having boys it’s not so bad it’s me I worry about. Sound familiar?
Do you turn off the car then on again? Do you chug along slowly so you keep moving or accelerate then sharply break? Am I in the right lane……..? That’s just me. But what happens to the kids behind.
These are our ” Traffic Jam” sanity savers or long journey savers. You usually find these in our car- always! We’ve used them and now keep available for times such as these.
Sticker books
These are a big favourite. There is a stall in a local market in the UK that sells sticker books. Whenever I’m home or anyone is coming over I beg ask them to bring a stack. All on different themes. With 20-30 pages they fit nicely into the pockets of the car seats in front of the children or into the stroller. Always something new and different in them. We reserve the 400 page mega sticker books for home or heavy-duty waiting. These little sticker books are often switched out and rotated.
Magnetic books
I’ve talked about Muddle Farm before and we love it in the car for the imaginary stories the boys make. They don’t always use the background and the stories are hilarious. We take an animal and start a story. Try the one where the pig goes to the beach for the day. Someone starts that story and everyone chimes in with the rest of it.
It’s not always easy to play games together even though we’re altogether because we have a third row in our car so someone can’t see. So many of our activities are for one person. However memory game is successful because you can pass the board back and forth and everyone can see if you’re cheating. (such a big deal for the under 5s). The BG started with hangman at 5. We played the original version and a modified version. The modified version is he uses a book to find a word. Uses the word for his hangman so he knows the word and its letters. He had to have a go at saying it too.
Audio books
We have a few Barefoot Books story CD’s and Scholastic book club CD’s. Both groups have paperback books that fit in the car so the kids have many ways to interact. They can follow along or listen or read independently. I love listening to them read the stories out loud, especially the MO who’s memorised the “ping” sound to turn the page. You can also make your own audio books. We love the little engine that could and have this book in our collection. For $0.99 you can get the 7 minute download of this book from Audible kids.
With all that heavy breathing, you are sure to have foggy windows. Make shapes, feet, bunnies on the windows using your fingers. The only problem is sticky greasy fingers but for me it’s worth it to clean the glass down the line.
When you ask your child, ” How was your day?” We don’t always get the type of conversation we bargained on. This type of direct conversation certainly doesn’t seem to work with mine, for sure. However if we’re doing a side by side activity together or next to each other we seem to get a better result. Maybe it’s boys? ( Any girl mums care to comment?)
Don’t overlook the small stuff
We have quite a few magic paint books. You need just water and a paintbrush. The paint appears on the page. You do have to be careful not to overwet otherwise the colours will run. In general we’ve had a lot of beginner exploratory fun with paint books like this for the baby and toddler….even on an airplane. But that is a whole other story.
At one time we had so many of the books and the older boys grew out of it so I put them up. Now this last week I got them out for the baby/toddler to try some mark making fun.
Life got busy and the two older boys asked if they could do one after flipping through the book.
While I did some work on the table they both worked at their picture
Don’t always follow your instincts
My initial reaction was to say I’ll get the other paints out or you’re too old. But it was there and I was time pushed so hey. Why not! It would be fun. My biggest concern was it would take one minute to do because they have the fine motor skills and well for them it’s just easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Also the trend is to go higher and not lower. Was I dumbing down their learning by letting them do something so easy! OK so that’s the first 20 seconds of thought.
In my hesitation, they let me know they would handle it all. Getting the paintbrush, water cup, newspaper, scissors etc. Each brother backed up the other. “I’ll get the water because I’m bigger.” “I know where the newspaper is and I’ll put it away this time.” Nothing wrong with their persuasive skills. I hope in 10 years time it is still there for their essays lol.:) I agreed on the fly.
I’m glad I did.
What happened?
I must admit I didn’t complete the work entirely that I was doing.
I did have interesting discussion for 20 minutes or so with my boys.
Each talked about the picture and things they painted seemed to trigger another story or something they had to tell me. Maybe it was the subject of one of them- a birthday party! I don’t know but all my misgivings about this simple paint activity slipped away. They talked about school, friends, and asked those way out questions you can only get from kids.
These art books are also another great way to stimulate discussion and conversation.
Discussion and meaningful conversation happens in many ways in a family. I’m so happy to have found a few other discussion starters that work with my family.
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When you ask your child, ” How was your day?” We don’t always get the type of conversation we bargained on. This type of direct conversation certainly doesn’t seem to work with mine, for sure. However if we’re doing a side by side activity together or next to each other we seem to get a better result. Maybe it’s boys? ( Any girl mums care to comment?)
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